She didn’t feel the same way about me. Mary was as straight as they came. So, I made excuses not to curl up with her, lean against her, or share the same bed when she stayed over at my house or me at hers. Eventually, she stopped trying to get me close. Maybe she did know about my feelings for her and was glad for the distance, or maybe we were just growing apart. Each of those scenarios made my heart ache every time I thought of her, which was nearly all of the time.
And I still ordered Hawaiian pizza, even when she wasn’t with me. I would pick off each piece of fruit and pretend I was passing it to her, imagine our hands were touching as she accepted my fruity offering. But only when it was home delivery, I hasten to add. Waiters and actual dates would undoubtedly have given startled looks at my extended gift and my love-struck grin.
Fuck. I am probably funding the cultivation of this tropical plant in South America and supporting fair trade workers. Ananas comosus should be changed to “Sponsored by Louise Thomas—The Sad Little Shit.” Sure. Funding fair trade workers is a good thing, but wasting my hard earned dosh on a fruit I didn’t even eat wasn’t.
So where does this leave me? Why am I focusing on my past life?
Maybe because it wasn’t just in the past. It was all too real, all too present. Especially now that Christmas was winging its merry little way into the season like a fucking bad penny, and I was the host this year for the family luncheon—the luncheon that Mary Carpenter was attending with her boyfriend / man friend / partner / whatever the fuck “he” it was that she had been seeing for a few months. Patrick, or some other such arse holed name, was the man of the moment. I hadn’t even met him, and I hated him already. Mary had talked about him when she called me, but not in a lot of detail. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her since she had started seeing him. Maybe that’s why I hated him. Maybe it was just because it wasn’t me she was waxing lyrical about.
And the worst thing?
She had news. I knew it was bad news, even before I heard it. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work it out. Mary was getting married, and I was getting my heart broken. Not what I’d asked Santa for this year, not by a long shot.
At least I learned a life lesson: Never trust a fat guy in a red suit who is always laughing, especially if he has broken into my house and has a full sack of something dangling over his shoulder. I can guarantee that his bag wouldn’t be full of festive cheer. More than likely, it would be full of weapons of torment in order to get me in shape for December 25th.
Knowing that Mary was going to be married would be a form of torture. I had no doubt that when she made her announcement, I would feel deprived of oxygen and have my pressure points pushed to the point of fainting, and my heart would definitely take the worst beating. Not to mention the intense interrogation techniques my sister and parents would put me through, as they had known for years that I felt more than friendship for Mary.
No. Christmas this year could go and fuck itself.
* * *
I slept quite well, considering I was like a kid with head lice all Christmas Eve. But I had to be up on Christmas morning to get “the bird” in the oven at the crack of the devil’s arse o’clock. After that, I had too much time on my hands. I prepared all of the vegetables, set the table, did all the little odd bits and bobs that a person usually remembers at the last minute, and it was still not even nine in the morning.
It was a choice of twiddling my thumbs until they became sore, or a long soak in the bath. I picked both, as sitting in the bath and trying to relax wasn’t happening. Every time I stretched out to lounge in the bubbles, Mary’s face appeared in front of me. Usually I would have made the most of the opportunity to be naked and wet and conjuring her face, but not this time. Seeing her face blossom into one of her breath-taking smiles would usually have had me grabbing for the loofah, but today her smile always followed her saying, “I’m getting married, Lou. Can you believe it?”
No, I couldn’t. I did, but I couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t allow myself to believe it until it wasn’t just an image of her saying it, but the real deal, and then I would probably still keep denying it.
In the end, I gave up. There was no point trying to relax when it was impossible to do so. I was clean, and that’s all that mattered.
Thankfully, my sister Hannah and her brood of urchins came earlier than the one o’clock we’d agreed upon. Considering the clock in my bedroom claimed it was only 10:24 a.m., I was perfectly within my rights to keep them hanging about on the doorstep until I had put some clothes on. Her excuse for turfing up two and a half hours early was her “concern” about how much I had to do for the Christmas lunch. I knew she was lying through her teeth, especially when I noted the kids were as high as kites already, and she had probably only turned up early so she could dump the kids in front of my TV and leave me to sort them out. It didn’t help matters when I spotted her husband, Pete, sloping off into the living room and clicking the door shut behind him. I stuck my middle fingers up in that general direction, thus alleviating some of the tension that was building inside me.
Hannah had barely enough time to take off her coat and bollock her kids before the doorbell went again. She looked at me sheepishly before shrugging and grinning stupidly. There was something afoot, something I just wasn’t getting.
I opened the door, and wasn’t surprised to see my parents standing there, grinning like idiots. I turned quickly to see Hannah mouthing something to them over my shoulder, just before her dip shit grin surfaced again. Anyone who hadn’t met us would have known that Hannah was related to my parents just because of her grin. Not that having a grin like that was something to be proud of.
‘What’s going on?’ The tone of my voice was commanding. Authoritative. The voice of a leader. I was impressed with my forcefulness, even lifting an eyebrow to reinforce my position as Alpha.
“Get out of the bloody way, Lou. It’s freezing out here.” My mum shoved past me to hug Hannah, and I knew they were whispering behind my back. Either that, or I was becoming paranoid.
“Hello, sweetheart. Merry Christmas.” My dad was the same as always—loving, kind, and considerate of my temperamental emotions when I was in charge of feeding the horde. He wrapped his arms around me and gave me a hug, one that I returned with equal fervour. “Are you ready for your surprise?”
“Jim!” My mum’s voice seemed to slice through my back and twat Dad around the face. He grimaced before blessing me with a wink. “Don’t tell her…what…erm…”
“Her present! That’s her surprise.”
Hannah was in on it too, but for the life of me I couldn’t put my finger on what “it” was. Had they won the lottery and were paying off my mortgage but wanted the whole family there to see me dance around the room and scream until I peed my pants?
I tilted my head, my eyes narrowing in accusation, but I knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere. I was shite at getting information, even when reading it from a leaflet.
My mum came back to me and hugged me close, landing a kiss on my cheek, followed by another and another. She knew that always made me laugh like a kid; and she also knew it was a complete change of subject.
“Jim?” My mum spoke over my shoulder. “Get Hannah’s boys to help you get the presents out of the car.” After a slight pause, she added, “And Lou can help you too.”
I pulled from her embrace and looked at her quizzically. “I’m Head Chef today, not Bellboy.”
“You’re a pain in the arse, that’s what you are,” came from behind me.
Trust Hannah to think she was a comedian. A crap comedian at that. One that would be sporting a festive black eye if she kept trying to press my buttons like she was playing with bubble wrap.
The words “fuck you” formed on my lips, but I knew I would have had to have my teeth surgically removed from halfway down my throat if I came out with that delightful epithet in front of my mother. So, I gritted my teeth, which were still in place, and went out into the cold December morning,
Hannah’s two lads dancing around like Ariel, the fairy sprite from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, on uppers behind me.
It was going to be a long day.
* * *
It was quarter to one, and it appeared that an army of ants had received marching orders to create havoc in my pants. I couldn’t sit still. My mother had taken over cooking duties, whilst Hannah and I became her sous chefs—taking orders from her like we were on the front line. My eyes constantly turned to the kitchen clock, and I had to mentally deduct an hour because I hadn’t bothered putting the clock back over two months earlier at the end of British summertime. At least it kept me on top of my maths skills.
And the reason for behaving like I had ants in my pants?
“She”—and I don’t mean Haggard’s Queen Ayesha—would be here at any moment. I could feel her getting closer. Honestly. I always knew when Mary was on her way. It was as if my world became more vivid, as if it was filmed in Technicolor when she was in it. That, and the fact that Mary was never late. If anything, she would be early. I so wanted her to be early. So wanted her to be here with me, just me. Not Patrick. Not the man who was going to take her away from me and make her his wife.
“You got something in your eye, Lou?”
Hannah’s face peered up at me, the blade of a huge knife glinting from the region of her hand.
I shook my head.
“So why are you standing there with your eyes tightly shut?”
My mum’s voice drifted over from the other side of the kitchen, her attention on making her “secret recipe” gravy. “She’s working out the clock again.”
Ding dong!
I physically felt my heart drop, lift, drop, lift, shoot side to side, drop and lift in the matter of seconds. Nausea swept through me, and I thought I would hurl my breakfast across the room in a splendid rainbow of chunks. Then I remembered I hadn’t eaten.
Ding dong!
The feeling that swept over me, maybe because of the cardiac dysrhythmia of moments before, created a coolness throughout my body and made my legs seem weak and useless.
“Are you going to get that?” Hannah waved the knife in the air in front of me. “Or do I have to do everything?”
Amazing how Christmas can make us all act like kids, isn’t it?
Ding dong! Ding dong!
“Lou! Just answer the bloody door. My gravy’s going lumpy.”
I don’t remember moving from the kitchen and into the hallway, but I must have. My hand was shaking as I lifted it to the latch; tunnelled vision made my fingers seem longer and misshapen.
Swallowing hard, I tentatively pulled the door open, all the while readying myself to meet Mary’s future husband. I knew I had to smile, knew I had to be on my best behaviour even though I wanted to drag her inside and leave him to freeze to death on my front doorstep, maybe even shouting out a “fuck off” for good measure.
But when I saw her…when my eyes met hers…when it seemed, once again, that I had fallen straight into her, straight inside of her, nothing else mattered. Not Patrick, not that Mary didn’t love or want me, nothing. It was enough. Just being near her was enough.
Maybe that was because it had to be enough.
Her smile was, as ever, radiant, her eyes filling with light that likely showed the happiness she was feeling at seeing me. I was her best friend, after all, and it had been over three months since we had last seen each other. Our phone calls had been hit and miss, too.
She didn’t wait for a hello. Mary’s arms wrapped around me and pulled me close, her face burying itself in my hair. The scent of her filled my nostrils as I breathed her in. It was her smell, hers and hers alone. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would be able to pick her out of a line-up, even if I was blindfolded.
I felt tears prick my eyes and had to swallow hard to suppress the emotion that was bubbling up inside me. Mary squeezed me harder, and I struggled to keep the sob back. Her hand stroked my hair, then stilled. She drew back and looked straight into me, her beautiful eyes sparkling with unshed tears, a sad smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.
Concern flooded through me. Why was she on the verge of crying? Had something happened with him? Had he hurt her? Told her he didn’t want her after all? A tingle of anger spread up from the region of my chest and then dissipated with my next thoughts.
What if it was me? Had I done something? Exposed my longing for her in my look, my embrace?
I started to pull back, give her space, but she wouldn’t let me. She kept holding on to me, her eyes becoming darker the longer I looked at her, the pupils taking over the colour and making them appear black.
“I’ve missed you so much, Lou. So much.”
Mary’s voice was soft, but sounded ragged. I couldn’t understand why she seemed unhappy. This was the day she should have been skipping about and announcing to the heavens that she was so happy she could explode. This was the day she would be telling us all about the man she loved, the commitment she was about to make, the life she was about to embark on. This wasn’t a day where she should be sad—unless the bastard had broken her heart just before Christmas.
No. Her appearance didn’t support my theories. She didn’t look as if she was nursing a rejection. Unlike me.
Instead of telling her how much I had missed her too, I changed the focus. I decided to put the “man of the moment” in the spotlight.
‘Where’s Patrick?’
Mary tilted her head and frowned. “Patrick?”
I bit my lip. I had to or else I would have called him a fine selection of names that couldn’t be repeated to people with sensitive stomachs. “Yeah. Pat-rick. You know, your boyfriend?’ I cringed at the obvious dislike in my tone, and tried to smile to distract her from my bitterness.
Mary’s eyes widened. I felt her stiffen, too. Shit. I hadn’t pulled it off. She had guessed I wasn’t Patrick’s number one fan. How could I be? Ever since she had met him I hadn’t seen her, hadn’t really heard from her either, apart from a quick call now and again.
“Oh! That Patrick! He, well…” A small laugh escaped her mouth. “Sorry. He’ll be here in a little while.” She grinned that grin I loved so much, and I felt my heart melt. “You’re stuck with just me for now.”
That was my ultimate wish. And it wouldn’t be stuck. Definitely not stuck. It could be many verbs, but that one didn’t even appear on the list. Such a shame that Patrick would be turning up after all.
As soon as the thought flitted through my head, guilt washed over me. I had to get used to the fact that Mary was not mine, would never be mine, never wanted to be mine. Alas, thinking those thoughts was a lot easier than accepting the sentiments behind them, as I still longed for her to be mine and me to be hers.
“Hello, love. Good to see you!”
My dad had broken free from Pete and the kids to greet the woman he considered his adopted daughter. I heard my mum shouting his name from the kitchen, but he ignored her as he pulled Mary into a hug. “Where’s that strapping lad of yours? I was hoping to meet him today.”
I wasn’t. Any similarity between me and my dad stopped there.
My mum called him again and he waved his hand in front of us as if to dismiss her, his face crinkling briefly into a disinterested look followed by his traditional cheeky grin.
“I saw that.” My mother had come looking for him, and judging by the expression on her face, I doubted he would get off lightly. “Hello, Mary love. Can I pinch him for a little while?” She smiled at Mary before giving my dad a death stare. “He needs to sort the turkey out.”
“Why? Has it been misbehaving?”
Why didn’t dads know when to give in?
My mum didn’t answer. I doubted she could have, considering her lips were pressed so tightly against her teeth, nothing was going to get past them. Not even a snotty retort.
Her expression was enough to make Dad realise that he was on the threshold of the doghouse, Christmas Day or not, and he scuttled off to do her b
idding, leaving just Mary and me, and an expectant atmosphere.
It was a good job that Mary always seemed to know what to do in all situations.
“Shall we?” She indicated we should follow my parents, and I realised that we were still standing in the hallway and the front door hadn’t even been closed.
Sometimes I am even more of a knob than I thought.
* * *
Christmas lunch went surprisingly well, considering there were four women in the kitchen. The reason was probably because we all knew our rank: Mum, Hannah, Mary, then me. I was glad I was last. At least I only had to do the boring shite and not take charge of a 15 pound turkey. We had enough leftovers for the usual fare of turkey sandwiches, turkey salad, turkey hotpot, and my dad’s speciality, “Is it really turkey?” That one, he usually ate on his own.
We hadn’t opened presents beforehand, even though Hannah’s lads had pestered the living shit out of anyone who would listen. Therefore, the afternoon was spent unwrapping gifts and oohing and ahhing in all the right places, even if it was the customary Christmas jumper with a cross-eyed reindeer on the front. Every year my parents bought us the same thing as a joke. It was a tradition. Hannah and I always got gloves, a hat, a scarf, and a diary. At least they had stopped with the chocolate selection boxes and colouring books, although Hannah’s kids appreciated them. Then again, so did I when I was twelve. I wasn’t one for writing a diary, as I never got past the second week in January, but Hannah still filled her pages with shit. I know this because I still read them when I got the chance, although she had never worked that out.
Amazingly, just before I was about to give Mary my present, my mum stood up and announced she was going to do the washing up. What was even more astounding was that Hannah volunteered to assist, something she would usually do only if dragged by her hair, screaming all the way. I looked towards Mary, who just grinned at me and shrugged.
Unwrap these Presents Page 9
